Both Baalke and Harbaugh balked at the suggestion there is an actual rift between the two of them. When Baalke met with the local media, he discussed his current relationship with Harbaugh.

“The No. 1 word I could use is, ‘misrepresented.’ A lot has been written, too much has been written about it. We have a very good working relationship. It’s troublesome when people are writing about a dynamic in a building that have never stepped foot in the building, or if they have, they’ve never made it past this level of the building. To say what goes on upstairs, for those that are writing about it in-depth, have never been up there. We work hard, we work very hard at this, with one thing in mind: to win a championship. That’s what this thing is about. He’s very good at what he does, very good at what he does. To say it’s always two rams butting heads, it’s so false and misleading. To say there’s no tension, it’d also be false and misleading. But it’s good tension, creative tension. It couldn’t be better right now. We’ve been in the draft room working our tail ends off to get this draft right, and we see a lot of things alike. The only thing your measured by in this business are wins and losses. There’s no other way to measure it. You get the job done or you don’t. Jim’s about getting the job done. That’s what I’m about. That’s what our ownership is about. Let’s get this thing done. I feel good about where we’re at. I really do. And I feel good about where we’re going. That’s all that matters to us. If you want us to hug and mug for cameras and all that, you’re looking at the wrong two guys.”

Earlier in the day, Harbaugh didn’t use as many words to echo the same sentiment.

Harbaugh on Baalke: "We’re in lockstep as an organization for how we pursue our goals and our next thing that we have to resolve …"